Nostalgia today is seen as essentially benign, a wistful longing for the past. This wasn't always the case, however: from the late seventeenth century through the end of the nineteenth, nostalgia denoted a form of homesickness so extreme that it could sometimes be deadly.

What Nostalgia Was unearths that history. Thomas Dodman begins his story in Basel, where a nineteen-year-old medical student invented the new diagnosis, modeled on prevailing notions of melancholy. From there, Dodman traces its spread through the European republic of letters and into Napoleon's armies, as French soldiers far from home were diagnosed and treated for the disease. Nostalgia then gradually transformed from a medical term to a more expansive cultural concept, one that encompassed Romantic notions of the aesthetic pleasure of suffering. But the decisive shift toward its contemporary meaning occurred in the colonies, where Frenchmen worried about racial and cultural mixing came to view moderate homesickness as salutary. An afterword reflects on how the history of nostalgia can help us understand the transformations of the modern world, rounding out a surprising, fascinating tour through the history of a durable idea.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Dodman is assistant professor in the Department of French at Columbia University.

REVIEWS

"Today the word [nostalgia] connotes poignancy more than suffering, but Dodman's What Nostalgia Was reminds us that nostalgia once referred to a severe and potentially fatal kind of melancholy.”

— Inside Higher Ed

“What Nostalgia Was is undoubtedly the best of the new wave of nostalgia studies. Dodman recounts the history of nostalgia in richly contextualized detail with thorough research and thoughtful, persuasive interpretations. This book is an impressive achievement.”

— Mark Micale, University of Illinois

“What Nostalgia Was is by far the most thorough and interesting investigation ever written into how physicians and others came to define a disease they labeled ‘nostalgia’ and how the phenomenon evolved over the two centuries from 1688 to 1884. Remarkably creative and original, this book has significant implications for how we understand the history of the emotions, the history of psychiatry, and the history of modern European society.”

— David A. Bell, Princeton University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Nostalgia as a Historical Problem
1 • Nostalgia in 1688
2 • The Reasons of a Passion
3 • The Lost Pays of the Patrie
4 • Mothers and Sons in the Time of Napoleonic War
5 • Golden Age
6 • Nostalgia in the Tropics
7 • Ubi bene, ibi patria: Nostalgia Fin de Siècle
Afterword: Nostalgia in History
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Archival Sources
Index

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who has a disability that prevents you
from using this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the disability coordinator at your school fill out this form.

Nostalgia today is seen as essentially benign, a wistful longing for the past. This wasn't always the case, however: from the late seventeenth century through the end of the nineteenth, nostalgia denoted a form of homesickness so extreme that it could sometimes be deadly.

What Nostalgia Was unearths that history. Thomas Dodman begins his story in Basel, where a nineteen-year-old medical student invented the new diagnosis, modeled on prevailing notions of melancholy. From there, Dodman traces its spread through the European republic of letters and into Napoleon's armies, as French soldiers far from home were diagnosed and treated for the disease. Nostalgia then gradually transformed from a medical term to a more expansive cultural concept, one that encompassed Romantic notions of the aesthetic pleasure of suffering. But the decisive shift toward its contemporary meaning occurred in the colonies, where Frenchmen worried about racial and cultural mixing came to view moderate homesickness as salutary. An afterword reflects on how the history of nostalgia can help us understand the transformations of the modern world, rounding out a surprising, fascinating tour through the history of a durable idea.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Dodman is assistant professor in the Department of French at Columbia University.

REVIEWS

"Today the word [nostalgia] connotes poignancy more than suffering, but Dodman's What Nostalgia Was reminds us that nostalgia once referred to a severe and potentially fatal kind of melancholy.”

— Inside Higher Ed

“What Nostalgia Was is undoubtedly the best of the new wave of nostalgia studies. Dodman recounts the history of nostalgia in richly contextualized detail with thorough research and thoughtful, persuasive interpretations. This book is an impressive achievement.”

— Mark Micale, University of Illinois

“What Nostalgia Was is by far the most thorough and interesting investigation ever written into how physicians and others came to define a disease they labeled ‘nostalgia’ and how the phenomenon evolved over the two centuries from 1688 to 1884. Remarkably creative and original, this book has significant implications for how we understand the history of the emotions, the history of psychiatry, and the history of modern European society.”

— David A. Bell, Princeton University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Nostalgia as a Historical Problem
1 • Nostalgia in 1688
2 • The Reasons of a Passion
3 • The Lost Pays of the Patrie
4 • Mothers and Sons in the Time of Napoleonic War
5 • Golden Age
6 • Nostalgia in the Tropics
7 • Ubi bene, ibi patria: Nostalgia Fin de Siècle
Afterword: Nostalgia in History
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Archival Sources
Index

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who has a disability that prevents you
from using this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the disability coordinator at your school fill out this form.